


Sculpting a Life

by lilith_lessfair



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26321317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_lessfair/pseuds/lilith_lessfair
Summary: This work is inspired by AnnEllspethRaven’s stunning image of Nerdanel standing before a sculpture she has created entitled Fire Conquers All in Winter.  I have not, by any means, done her work justice.   Please enjoy the rest of AnnEllspeth’s work at Deviant arthereThis work explores the emotions and feelings Nerdanel experiences following the Flight of the Noldor and considers how she might have arrived at a form of peace and of hope, despite the losses endured.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 14
Collections: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	Sculpting a Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnEllspethRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnEllspethRaven/gifts).



The work of a sculptor was often a tedious labor thought Nerdanel as she stood and gazed at the statue before her. Stepping from one side to the other, she considered her next step. She was at the delicate stage where her work was near to completion, its final beauty almost revealed, and each stroke required greater care in its selection and execution lest the piece be marred at the very moment it was nearly finished. She contemplated each choice carefully, placing her chisel at different points upon the marble, considering, reconsidering and then moving it to another place. Having finally reached her decision, she aligned her chisel to the stone, raised her hammer and then struck once, twice and then again.

“I think,” a voice said, once she’d set the chisel down and paused to examine the shape before her, “that I might need to craft still a finer tool than the one you are using.”

“This one is more than adequate,” she said, turning and smiling, to her grandson. He stood, leaning in the doorway. He carried a tray on which he’d place and now balanced rather precariously a bottle of wine, two goblets and a loosely-tied bouquet of roses.

“Are you certain?” he asked. He stepped into the room and then set the tray down upon a table near the open window. “I wonder if adjusting the angle of it might ensure it was easier to carve so delicate a line.”

“This is the fourth such you’ve made in a month,” she answered, smiling at him. She set the hammer and chisel down and walked over to where he stood. She smelled the heady scent of citrus and spice and, beneath it, the familiar and comforting fragrance of the roses. She lifted one and drew it to her nose. “Perhaps you should resume your practice of the art in order to better understand the tools you might craft for it.”

“Perhaps I should,” he said, mildly. He poured the wine and handed the goblet to her. “I have considered it. My mother said to bring this to you. Mulled wine with orange and ginger from the greenhouses since you seem determined to continue to work into the night. I saw the roses earlier when I was collecting the oranges for her and thought you might appreciate them.”

“I had wanted to complete this in time to present it as the year turned,” she said, “and so I have continued to work. Even had I not a timeline to follow, I would want to work, having achieved a certain clarity about the piece.”

“That I understand,” he replied. Pouring a goblet for himself, he asked, “I am much the same. Would you like me to close the window?”

“No,” she answered, “I do not expect it to snow and the view is remarkable this time of day. I have grown to love the twilight; it is a gentle time before the world begins to rest and when the edges of memory may soften.”

“Do they soften?” he asked quietly. He had turned to face, his eyes fixed upon the mountains surrounding Formenos. She followed his gaze and noticed that the brilliant pinks and reds brought by the setting sun no longer colored the mountains. Instead, they had begun to soften and to fade to an easy and gentle grey.

“They do,” she said. “In time. The edges of your memories may be sharper, being newer and less familiar.”

“But in time?” His voice was still quiet and she noticed his hand, fingers tight, catching the edge of the windowsill.

“In time,” she said. “I cannot promise that it will be as if the wound had never been. Unlike the body, remade when one is brought into the world again, the fëa continues to carry its scars. But the presence of them does not mean that they are the sum total of who you are. Rather they represent an aspect of you, not unlike an unusual characteristic in the stone one might find in a quarry.”

“I thought we avoided imperfection,” he answered, “in the stones we quarry.”

“What is an imperfection other than a characteristic? A different vein or spot of color may seem a flaw in the marble. An inexperienced sculptor or an impatient one might choose to remove it. But a more patient sculptor, one with imagination and a willingness to work with the nature of the stone rather than desiring to alter it, might be able to draw out remarkable beauty in an unexpected place.

“Working with the flaw in the medium rather than cutting it out?”

“The greatest sculptors seek to reveal the form within the block of stone itself. They do not seek to craft something not inherently present within the stone itself or to impose their vision upon it in ways that deny its nature and characteristics. In this, there are no flaws, merely characteristics and elements of the stone to be refined and improved upon to reveal the shape within,” she said.

“I see,” he replied. “At least I think I do.”

“Our lives, our lived experiences, that which we have endured, though the acts of others or our own choices are not flaws, unless we chose to remain limited by them,” Nerdanel answered. “They are characteristics. We work with them as we work with the characteristics of the materials we shape. This stone,” she paused and indicated the block before her, “is soft when quarried but grows harder over time. It also is translucent, lending itself well to the shaping of more delicate features and finer details, such as this veil. But that delicacy is also evident in the stone itself. It stains and may be affected even by touch too easily.”

“I see,” he said. “The characteristics are neither wholly good nor flawed.”

“They simply are,” she said, “and they are valuable if you know how to work with their nature. When you deny their nature or the experience, then the material is not shaped properly and may be damaged.”

She took another drink and walked closely to the statue, beckoning to him. He joined her and stood considering the stone.

“What do you think of it?” she asked.

He began to walk around the piece slowly, considering its different angles.

“It is an unusual piece,” he said, “almost as if it is comprised of two distinct natures.”

“Is that how you would describe it?” Nerdanel asked.

He paused and, changing direction, continued to examine the piece. “No, perhaps not,” he said, “because that suggests a sort of clumsiness, an uncomfortable marriage between unlike components. This is not that. It is both intentional and seamless. Let me think.”

“Think less,” she said, smiling. “Feel more. What do you feel when you look at it? Start at the base. How would you describe it? How does it make you feel.”

“It is heavy,” he said, squatting to be at eye level at the base. She watched as he considered the figure closely. “It is a sleeping woman, but she seems weighted and not merely by the fabric that drapes her or the flowers arrayed around and upon her. Something else holds her and prevents her from rising.”

“What does that — that sense of something weighing and holding her — feel like to you?” Nerdanel asked.

“Like sorrow, emptiness, the absence of joy,” he said. “There is a weight to sorrow and to grief that may hold one in place.”

“Yes,” she said, “there is. And the absence of that which brought us joy does not lighten our burdens but rather increases them.”

“True,” he said. “The details in the flowers are very fine as are the draperies. I feel their reality and with it the weight of the sorrow to which they allude.”

“Thank you,” Nerdanel said. “But what of the other?”

“It is why I said it seemed as if the piece had two natures,” he answered. “This piece floats and hovers. There is a lightness to it, a hope, a sense of something beyond sorrow. It hints at the possibility of joy, if not now, at some time in the future.”

“Why would you say that?” Nerdanel asked and then she took another sip of the wine. She tilted her head and examined her grandson.

“The draperies that so conceal and seem to weight the sleeping figure barely touch the rising one. Only her face and her arm is covered and the remaining draperies float and lift around her as if she were in motion. She seems as if she is floating — as if you captured her — had frozen her in time — as she had just begin to soar,” he said. “She seems as if she herself may not be able to fly away but rather that she remains present, hovering, in order to show the sleeping figure a path to joy. Her eyes direct our focus to this path; her hand indicates that we should follow.”

“Are you able to feel that?” she asked.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

“Had you thought of sculpting again?” she asked, moving closer to him and touching his shoulder. He had before when he was young. She remembered him coming to visit, a serious little boy who grew into a serious young man. She had taught him how to mold clay and to shape marble. He had excelled at it, had been possessed of a fiery determination to surpass her other students and to excel at his art. He had not, in fact, surpassed all of her other students, though he had many, and might, in time, have bested all, including herself. Before he could, however, his attention had turned to the craft of Aulë, and his father’s and his grandfather’s attention had turned to revenge.

“I did,” he said mildly, “in Eregion, between the wars, but stone never spoke to me the way metal did and does.”

“What of bronze, then?” she asked. “Sculpture may be cast rather than carved.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “in time. It has been strange, still, to have the use of my hands for the making of things again, and I am not sure I am ready to create something more than a tool for the use of others.”

“Do you think you will be?”

“In time. I have learned not to hurry myself,” he answered. He stood and began to move around the statue. “It’s coming along nicely,” he said.

“The veil is difficult,” she replied.

“As it should be,” he answered, “in order for you to achieve your vision and to challenge yourself. When did you first think of this piece?”

“After you had left,” she said. “Some time after. I drew it in response to my sorrow after you and your father and uncles had gone in the hope of reminding myself that all sorrows must ease and that, despite doom pronounced upon you, there might be hope for a new beginning in time.”

“I cannot imagine how that must have been,” he said, “after we’d left. We’d little time to think on it, not for many years. We were too occupied in the flight and in survival afterwards. That might have kept us from going mad.”

“Possibly,” she said. “Probably.”

“Why had you not completed it before now?”

“That,” she said, “is a long story. In short, though, I had offered it to the Teleri in apology and in shared sorrow and in the hope that one day both our peoples might once again find joy. At first, they were unwilling to accept it.”

“I would imagine it was a difficult gift. Why are you fashioning it if they rejected it? Had they changed their mind or have you decided to create it yourself?”

“They were not willing to accept my gift,” Nerdanel said. “But they did not reject it. Instead, they bade me to hold it until such time as its acceptance felt right. We have, at least, arrived at that time.”

“What has marked that change?” Tyelperinquar asked.

“What was the occasion of your re-embodiment?” Nerdanel answered.

“I had done sufficient penance, I assume,” he said. “I had been healed.”

“Do you feel healed?”

“I feel more whole than I was,” he answered.

“That may be part of it, but what has happened in the world since you were re-embodied?”

“It has changed,” he said quietly.

“Your old enemy was been defeated, bound to the ringcraft you created together and to the Ring he made to master you. And with his defeat?”

“The Exiles are finally returned home.”

“Indeed,” she said, “neither you nor Artanis were allowed before. With Sauron defeated, the Rings unmade, and the world of Man upon Arda outside of the Blessed Realms, the old grudges no longer seem as potent. My offering is now acceptable.”

“I see,” he said. “A new beginning in the midst of those endings.”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Will you tell me more? More of the time after we had left and of this statue’s imagining?”

“I shall,” she answered, “if you will tell me more. Are you happy to be back and to be here? You were once so very restless.”

“I was once,” he answered. “Restless. I was always and ever dissatisfied with what I did, and that dissatisfaction kept me moving forward. It would not allow me to be still or satisfied with what I had accomplished. Always and ever I had the sense that there was more yet to be done and that I must continue to strive.”

She turned to look at him then, the only one of her family gone to Middle Earth that had returned. He so greatly resembled his father and his father’s father with hair dark as a raven’s wing and eyes as bright as the stars in the night sky. He resembled his uncles, too, she thought. There was a hint of Macalaurë in the timbre of his low voice and something of Moryo’s intense focus in the way he sometimes considered a problem before him. She might even see a touch of his uncle Tyelko in his broad shoulders and lean waist and more than a touch of Maitimo in the wistfulness of his face as he looked at her.

“I had noticed then,” she said. “I am glad you are less restless now.”

“Because of where it led me?”

“Perhaps,” she answered.

He smiled, “I still am interested in moving forward, but I am able to take satisfaction in what I have done. That, I find, is something of a blessing, particularly after everything that I have done and all of its consequences. Is it one you have?”

She sat the wine down and look at him, seeing his father in the sharpness of his gaze but her eldest in the gentleness of his smile. “I have more than I once did, though it has been a long labor to achieve it. Your mother has been of help to me, and others, many of whom I’d not expected to offer their support and compassion,” she replied. “But there is this too; I am glad to have you home. Are you unhappy to be here?”

“In Valinor?” he answered. “I’d not looked for it nor expected to be released so soon, even with Sauron defeated. But I am grateful to be released from the halls and returned to the living.” He refilled her goblet and returned it to her. “I am happy to be with you and my mother and your father.”

“Even here? In Formenos,” she asked. “There cannot have been many happy memories here.”

“More than you might think,” he said. “More than there were later. Shall I tell you of them? Would you want to know?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Will you tell me why you chose to settle here? In a place to which you did not venture much before?”

“I had come here before,” she said. “Not to the fortress, of course, for it had not been built. Your grandfather once spoke of building a great home here, and I suppose he did. But we came rather to the village nearby and lived there, in the cottage where the herbwoman now dwells. North was where we went, your grandfather and I, when we were young and when the world seemed new to us. This place was on we loved. Here we studied. Here we learned and created. Here we married and here we began our family. Perhaps it was why he returned here and built this place in his exile.”

“I think it might have been,” he answered. “I understood little then, but he seemed always to be searching for something he had lost, even here, when he had so much of his family surrounding him. He did not have you.”

“It had been long since we were content and almost as long since I had been able to soothe his mind.”

“I am sorry,” her grandson said.

“It has been a very long time, and it had been a long time even then,” she replied. “It is, I think, difficult, but not the most difficult thing, to lose one you love because you can no longer live with them.”

“True,” he replied. “But what is the most difficult thing?”

“To lose that which you created with them?”

“Your sons,” he said gently.

“And, their loss, you and all that might have been had they and you stayed.”

“They could not, no more than you could go.”

“I know,” she answered. “And still.”

“And still,” he said. “When we came here first, it was a strange time. We were busy with the building of this place and crafting and creating all that was needed to make it a place in which we might live and not merely survive. That — that need to see things through — helped us to remain calm, I think. We weren’t able to think too much on what had led us here or to grieve what we had lost. We had little choice but to move forward. But, perhaps, it would have been better for us if we had stopped for a moment; we might have reflected more upon what we had lost.” He lightly touched the marble of the statue, ran his hand down the delicate line of the veil, and said, “I would you had been here with us and my mother too.”

“I could not,” she answered, “and remain who I was. I would we had been allowed to keep you and the Ambarussa rather than sending you North and setting all upon that path.”

“The path wasn’t entirely our choosing,” he answered, “much of it was Morgoth’s doing. But it is true that we did choose to walk it in the end.”

She had no immediate answer to that, but rather stood and watched as he walked around the statue.

“The figure above is so very intriguing,” he said.

“Tyelperinquar,” she said, “I am sorry that I couldn’t,”

“I understand why now,” he replied. “I think it was wise of you.”

She waited and watched as he inspected each aspect of the statue carefully. “I can understand why it was a gift to be busy, at least for a time, and why, in the end, it might not have been.”

“How so?”

“When you left with your father was that also a busy time?”

“It was,” he said, “a mad attempt to exert some sort of order from chaos. A failure, in most respects, at least until we met our more serious defeats and had little choice but to regroup.”

“When you left,” she said, “when your grandfather left and took your brothers and your sisters with you, when he stole the ships and when ...”

“When we slew the Teleri?”

“Yes,” she said. “I did not know what to do.”

“I do not think we did, in truth, but we knew we were unable to turn around then,” he replied. “What did you do?”

“For a time, nothing,” she replied. “I had hoped it was but a dream. I hoped I would awake and find you all safe in the North or wake and find him abed and me yet pregnant with the last. I hoped but that was not to be.”

“And then?” he asked, “for us, it seemed also a strange dream but one from which we could not wake but that pulled us farther and deeper within it into a sort of madness from which there was so escape. What did you do when you learned it was no dream or at least not a dream from which you might wake?”

“Shall I tell you?” she said. “Would you like to know?”

“Very much,” he replied. “We often thought of you and wondered what you might be doing. We told stories about it, made it seem as ordinary as it might possibly be, that you missed us but you were somehow safe and, though sad, would find your way to contentment again.” But then he laughed and said, “Or my uncles did. I did not, at least not at first. I was young and I wanted you to miss me as I missed you. I wanted to know that my absence was felt and that someone grieved for me, missed me, even as we were increasingly reviled. I wanted to know I was loved somewhere.”

“Come, then,” she said. “Walk with me.” She took his hand and drew him from her studio and out into the grand halls her husband had built but which she had not seen until he’d gone. Here, she thought, the man at her side at begun to grow from child to young adult, and she had not been present to see it. That had not been her choice, not entirely, but still it stung. She walked with him through the halls and down the many different flights of stairs until they reached the courtyard where slumbering trees and roses rested and where she might see the bright green leaves of holly she had planted upon his return. She loved it for its ability to remain vibrant in the winter and for its brilliant red berries, red as the roses she loved.

She sat down upon a bench and indicated that he should join her. Once he did, she began softly and carefully to tell him of what had befallen her and what she had made of it when they had gone. She spoke with thought and with care. Here was one whose departure was not, perhaps, entirely of his own choosing. Strong-willed he had been and at the cusp of manhood, but he had loved his father and his father’s father greatly. If he believed that they were in need of him, he would have followed them anywhere in the world. He had, as well, lost in that venture, lost, at the least as much as she, watching his grandfather perish and losing uncles, father and cousins in the relentless heat of war and the passage of time. He, too, it had been, who had been forced to make impossible choices. He had not sworn the Oath; she had heard tell of him, standing aside, wide-eyed as his father and his uncles swore it, but he hadn’t. Yet he had still found himself bound and trapped by it, unable to return when the others had after Morgoth had fallen.

In the days and weeks after her family had left, Nerdanel had been shocked. She had not been shocked, perhaps, at the depth of her husband’s madness but that the consequences of it and how widespread and deep they were. These were felt in the lives lost in Formenos and at Aqualondë and in the families shattered both among the Noldor as well as the Teleri.

She had been expected to remain in her home and to grieve. It was, she was certain, a more seemly choice. But she had not been able to do it. In the moments in which she had been left alone, she had heard her husband’s voice calling upon the Powers as witnesses and imagined the Darkness descending upon the Trees and upon Finwë, brave and alone. She heard the sound of the waves, of men shouting and the sound of a sword being drawn.

She had tried to turn from these images, knowing she herself had not chosen them and had played no part in them. But each time she tried to turn these sights and sounds from her mind, she had been unable to do so. She had stayed away. She had paced. She had worried, and she had wondered. She had sent message after message to her brother through marriage and asked what he knew. She had demanded to know what she might be able to do, hoping that some action might drive the despair from her mind and her heard.

However, each message she sent was received and answered with a polite note. These notes expressed sympathy for her losses. They contained some evidence of Arafinwë’s recognition of her desire to make amends for the damage that had been done but also indicated, albeit very diplomatically and gently, that her presence was more likely to do harm than it would do good.

She had listened for a time and had remained in her father’s home as she had been instructed. But, then, one day, she watched her father preparing to leave their one. He stood, carrying two bags, one of which sounded as it contained tools from his smithy, and collected a heavy woolen cloak from the door. Nerdanel asked him where he planned to go.

“Aqualondë,” he replied.

“Why?”

“To make amends,” he said, “as best I can.”

“How?”

“The lives lost, those of the sons, fathers and brothers slain at the ships, may not be claimed, though, in time, they may be returned. But new ships may be built and a harbor may be returned. They needs must eat, at any rate,” he had said. “And I can make that which they need to do it.”

“Wait,” she said.

“For what?” Mahtan answered.

“I am coming with you,” she replied.

“Child,” he began, “this may not be the place for you.”

“Was I not your student?” she asked. “Before any of them were? And, though I have not the skill of those who took flight, am I not more than an adequate pupil and able to craft what is needed?”

“Yes,” he answered, “of course, you are, and you would have had as much had you chosen to use your talent in that way.”

“I am aware my presence might be unwelcome,” she said, “but I am of no use to anyone sitting here in silence.”

“I know and it is commendable,” he said. “But we do not wish to make those who have already suffered feel worse in order to serve that which we need.”

“Perhaps it would be of comfort to know that we — even those who are kin to the ones who did this — care.”

He looked at her closely, a pity she was uncomfortable seeing present in his dark eyes, and then he sat his bag down and leaned against the wall.

“It will not bring them back,” he said. “Not the Teleri and nor your sons.”

“I know,” she said, “but I would not sit here and do nothing.”

“If they ask that you leave?”

“Then I will go with no complaint,” she said, “but if they allow me to stay, then let me at least be of the help of which I am capable.”

The Teleri, she told her grandson, had allowed her to stay. Olwë had looked at her with an expression not dissimilar from the one still present in her father’s eyes. When Mahtan assured him of her own skill at the forge, he had simply nodded and returned to the business at hand. Her brother-by-marriage sat at the same table, his face impossibly weary and his eyes turned to lists comprised of names and of goods; he had met her gaze and nodded before returning to his work. She and her father were given rooms in an older wing of Olwë’s palace. It was a quieter wing and comfortable, though the furnishings were far from new. Those persons who passed them on their way to their rooms avoided making eye contact. They seemed — all the Teleri seemed — as if they moved in a dream. It was not unlike how she herself felt as if she were removed from the world around her and were in a dream from which she hoped one day to wake.

The next morning they walked to the harbor. She noticed the empty piers and the smaller fishing boats bobbling where once much larger vessels had been moored. She saw that the worst of the damage had already been removed; no bodies remained, no discarded weapons and no bloodstains were yet there. She knew that she was grateful not to see such reminders of what had passed, but she found it strange in its way. Almost one might imagine that the fleet had merely gone to sea and that it might return with its brilliantly white hulls sparkling in the light, the delicate winds crafted along their sides seemingly ready to take flight and the graceful curve of the swans’ necks caught as if they were about to dip and drink from the water. But that was not so. A careful eye was certain to find evidence of a struggle and theft in the places where a rail stood broken, where a blade had cut into wood, or where a statue had once stood but only shards remained.

Nerdanel had braided her hair back from her face and had followed her father to the place where he and his apprentices were assembling a makeshift forge and positioning lamps in a variety of places around it to illuminate the area and make crafting possible. She looked at the group and thought there were too few. She counted them once and again, and she wondered if she were mistaken. But, after a cursory look around the harbor, she realized that she was not. Only half the accustomed number were present and were drawn from the ranks of the youngest apprentices. She saw only two other masters and one journeyman.  
“The rest took ship,” her father said. He spoke in her mind and not aloud. “You will have to help me train some of these. I no longer seem to have enough journeymen to do it on my own.”

She nodded and then asked, “What are we to do? What do they need us to make?”

“Simple things,” he replied. “Necessary things. Tools to shape the boards to build a hull. Nails and bolts to affix the planks. Rings to secure the canvas of a sail. I have suggested sheathing to make the hulls more secure against those creatures that’s old bind themselves to a hull. But the Teleri are not interested in such a thing, so similar, they say to a weapon of war, at this time. We shall also have to make clamps to help them to hold the plants in position as they are shaped, and, eventually, anchors. But we start with these, the most basic needs.”

“Who will do the building?” Nerdanel asked. “If we make so many different tools?”

“Those men who are left,” he answered. “And the boys, I suppose. We may offer to help if accepted.”

“They used not to accept help from those who were not Telerin.”

“Those were days when they had sufficient numbers among their own people to build what was needed.”

Something caught at the edge of her attention and settled in her mind when he spoke those words. But she was unsure of what it was and knew they had much to accomplish, so she did not think further on it. Instead, she simply nodded her head and called one of the apprentices to her side before she set to work.

The day was a long one and difficult, both physically and otherwise. Nerdanel was a sculptor and, as such, was used to long, difficult and tedious labor. She often moved and lifted heavy objects, shaped marble with the touch, sometimes heavy and sometimes light, of a hammer and a chisel. But the nature of this craft, familiar as it had been to her as a girl, was different to that of sculpture and required a strength of its own. Her muscles, no longer as used to it as they had once been, ached, and she grew weary faster than she expected. As she worked, she also noticed that many of the Teleri paused as they passed and watched both her father and she herself with inscrutable eyes. Several seemed as if they wished to speak. One woman, in particular, had lingered for several long moments and looked as if she wished to tell them something. But, in the end, none spoke. All eventually walked on.

At the end of the long day, she watched her father pack his tools and gathered her own. They walked back to the palace in silence. A meal was brought to them and served in the sitting room that connected their suites of rooms. Both ate silently, and Nerdanel was glad of the silence. She was too tired to respond to much more than the simplest questions. Her father seemed to lack the energy to ask those. When they had finished, he collected the dishes and carried the tray upon which the meal was served and placed it outside their door. Then he bid her goodnight. Nerdanel nodded and then walked the very short distance to her rooms. She walked through the door and into a large chamber, at the far side of which a well, if not fashionably, appointed bed sat. Two pitchers of water, one of which emitted a soft plume of steam, and a large shallow basin stood nearby with an assortment of cloths, some of which were larger and others were small. She noticed a clean shift, some small clothes and then a heavy shawl. She removed her clothing, folded it and set it to the side, and then began to wash herself slowly and carefully. She cleaned the smoke and ash from the forge from her fingers and her arms. She carefully wiped the residue of sweat and grime from her body. She noticed the strength of her fingers and of her arms and of her legs. She passed the cloth carefully over her breasts and her belly noting the heaviness of her breasts and the silvery marks left from six pregnancies. She gripped the cloth in her hand and sank to the floor wrapping her arms around her body and curling in upon herself. She held herself there and counted her breaths, one and then two and three and then four and five until she felt able to rise and stand. Carefully she began to dry herself and then placed the shift over her head. She walked to the bed and carefully lay down, noting as she did, that she remained in the old habit of sleeping at the edge of one side of the bed, occupying as little room as possible, though there was no longer a husband or children to take the rest.

The next day was as difficult and so was the one following and the one after that. For days and for weeks, the labor remained grueling, and she wondered if they were truly making any progress towards healing the wounds suffered by the Teleri or if they were merely bandaging a wound they’d not yet cleaned. Still, despite her worries and her reservations, the new fleet began to take shape. But, because the building of it was under circumstances none wanted, the launch of the first completed ship was a somber one. There was no celebration, though both Arafinwë and Olwë stood in still silence to watch it cast off from the pier and sail into the harbor. Earwen stood next to them, no longer white clad, but wearing grey, grey as the sea in winter, grey as sorrow. Nerdanel stood and watched, remember the last launch she’d attended, so many years before, and how very different it had been. That launch had been in the early spring. Cherry trees had been in bloom, their blossoms falling and decorating the pathways to the harbor. She herself had worn red flowers in her dark hair and woven into a girdle around her hips. In her memory, they stood out before her, not unlike a splash of blood against the fabric of her gown.

She had gone to the launch that day, despite having had a commission she needed to finish, because the twins had wanted to see the ships. There had been no one else to take them. Maitimo had been occupied at one of his grandfather’s councils. Curufinwë and Moryo working with her father in the Halls of Aulë. Tyelkormo had been off hunting with his cousin, Irissë, though more often than not the two returned with little bagged but one another. Macalaurë had already arrived at the event, though, apparently, singing at it with his golden-haired cousin, Finderato.

A large crowd had gathered at the docks for, even then, the launches of a Telerin ship were rare and were moments to be celebrated. Nerdanel had held a small hand in each of her own and had guided them through the busy, laughing gathering. She had noticed the smell of roasted meat, sold on delicate, sweet skewers, and then the smell of fried dough, drizzled in honey, and then of fruit pies, these the citrus grown primary in the greenhouses or the last crop of apples carefully stored in the cellars to stay fresh. Other vendors had stood by, selling tiny models of ships, some so carefully crafted that the wings were able to move and the swans’ heads bobbed if a tiny finger pressed at specific places on the hull. She had bought one of each for the boys and then tiny dolls dressed to resemble sailors too. The closer they had come to the pier, the more easily they heard the music, sweet and lovely amid the laughter of the crowd. From a distance, she had heard her second-born chuckle and then begin a light melody on his harp while his cousin had joked with the audience before responding with a snip off bawdy sailors’ tune in the flute. Shortly after, they had begun to sing another tune, this one a sweet ballad begging Ossë to watch after their vessels and asking Uinen to gentle the waves. Someone had jostled her as they passed, and Nerdanel had turned her head to see young Nerwen hurrying through the crowds and had heard Eärwen’s voice calling after her and telling her to come back. Shortly after, she noticed Aegnor following in her general direction, quietly apologizing to those he must pass by. She had smiled, thinking that they must come regularly to these events.

“May we come closer?” Pityo had asked, though his brother had already started pulled them closer to the pier’s end.

“Of course,” she had replied, and she’d tried to guide them further. But the great crowd gathered there and around Macalaurë and Finderato as they played had prevented them from moving much farther. They’d had to remain fairly close to where they were and she’d ended up purchasing not a few pastries to ease the boys’ disappointment that they were not able to see the great ship set sail. They had, however, been able to catch several glimpses of it as it cleared the end of the pier and sail out into the harbor. As they did, each had pointed at it and swore they’d take ship upon one in their lifetime. Nerdanel had laughed, but she had noticed several other young boys, all silver and golden-haired, do the same, pointing to one great ship or another and claiming that vessel as their own. She had observed their mothers smile indulgently. As the ship made its journey out into the harbor, she had noticed that other musicians had joined their voices and instruments to her son’s and her nephew’s, and the crowd also began to join and sing. The boys had laughed then and danced around her, singing too. They’d continued dancing and singing the rest of the way home.

There was no singing this day. No musicians were present, certainly not her son and not her nephew, both of whom were on their ways, separately or together, to the lands across the sea. She wondered if they had arrived, if they were safe, or if something, some element of the Doom so loudly pronounced, had already been felt. At least some of the Doom had been visited upon those who remained. Nerdanel looked at those who stood at the harbor’s edge and watched; there were few men in their prime to her eyes and several of those who stood there were bandaged and leaned upon a crutch or a cane. None of those met her eyes. She saw more women and several young children. This time they simply stood and stared at the graceful vessel as it floated away from the pier and into the harbor. None pointed at it and none claimed a place on it as their own. Perhaps, Nerdanel thought, they hadn’t because there was only the one. Perhaps they no longer wanted to, having learned for the first time the price of holding something too dear. With no child at her side, she turned and began the walk to the palace. As she walked, she passed several different shops; some were closed and boarded. At others she saw men, women and children at work and at play, though there were more women and children to her eye than men. As she reached the last street before she turned to the palace, she noticed a small shop containing the tools of her own vocation. A lamp lit the interior and it seemed there were those inside. She walked to the door and opened it.

The shop itself was small, but it seemed as well stocked as those similar to it in Tirion. She saw pastels, both oil and watercolor, and she noticed paints in a wide array of colors. Near to the paints were a selection of brushes, some rounded, some flat, some angled and still more. She saw the modeling clay she preferred, cut into blocks of varied sizes, and then she noticed charcoal for sketching. She carefully selected a set of pastels and then charcoal and carried both to the counter where a young woman worked. As the girl began to package the pastels and the charcoal, Nerdanel asked what types of paper she had. The young woman asked the size she wanted and then reached beneath the counter to select several pieces which she packaged equally carefully before handing everything to Nerdanel.

“Are you sure you would not like some clay as well?” the young woman asked.

“I ... yes, I would,” she answered.

“I thought you might,” the young woman said. “I remembered you. I visited your studio in Tirion not five years ago.”

“I see,” Nerdanel answered.

“I do not entirely know how I feel that you are here,” the woman replied, “but I appreciate that you wish to help, even if I would prefer we were in no need of it.”

“As would I,” Nerdanel said.

The woman smiled thinly, “But we do need the help to build. Not only did we lose many of our mariners and our most skilled sailors when the ships were taken, but we lost many of our better artisans who chose to fight rather than see their handiwork taken.”

“We find ourselves in similar position,” Nerdanel replied, “though the fault lies clearly on my side.”

“Was it?” the young woman responded. “Perhaps, but I wonder — how many arrived at the harbor, saw a battle and chose to defend their kin?”

“Still ... “ said Nerdanel. “Blame does rest with the ones who first drew their swords and I fear that I may know who that was.”

“And yet your people — those who did not leave — are left in much the same position as our own, and I wonder what will become of some of us.”

“None shall starve,” Nerdanel said.

“Not in the Blessed Realm,” the woman answered and Nerdanel noticed that there was something strained in her smile. “Perhaps not, but would you not agree that much has changed here, and I do not know how we will reclaim the innocence of old.”

“Much has changed,” Nerdanel replied, “though I wonder — and, in saying this, I do not mean to diminish the pain of your loss — if this last was but the most violent evidence, much as the loss of the Trees is the most obvious, of Darkness having come among us.”

“Perhaps,” the woman said, “though death has been among us before.”

“But rarely here,” Nerdanel replied. “Only the once before the Enemy returned.”

“But, it walked among us before, if my mother’s mother’s tales are to believed,” the girl said. “Perhaps it finally completed the journey and arrived here.”

“Only to leave and to return to Beleriand with the Enemy?”

“And your husband’s jewels? And his father’s blood? And those of other fathers?”

“Yes,” Nerdanel replied. “Except that I fear that the Shadow of those deeds remains and will be as difficult to lift as the Darkness that shadows our land after the loss of the Trees.”

“Perhaps,” the woman replied, “but some light yet remains through the stars and so, while there is more darkness, it is not yet complete. Nonetheless, you are correct that our world has changed and has become darker, and we must consider what we will do now that things are different. My people must considers this and yours too. You have also lost husbands and brothers, fathers and sons.”

“We have,” Nerdanel replied. “Though I feel I should not say that.”

“Does the manner of their loss make it any less true that they are lost?” the woman asked. “Do you grieve less?”

“No,” she replied, “but my sons may yet live.”

“And yet they may not return,” the woman’s tone was gentle, thoug her words were difficult. “And for how long may they live? And will you know to grieve them?”

“I do not know,” Nerdanel replied.

The young woman nodded and touched Nerdanel’s hand with her own before turning away to begin organizing her stock.

Nerdanel took her package from the counter and left. She continued the walk to the palace with both the woman’s voice and her questions in her head. She considered the woman’s insistence that their grief might be shared though Nerdanel’s family and its choices had placed them upon opposite sides of a very great loss, and, slowly, an image began to take shape in her mind.

When she arrived at her rooms in the palace, another young woman and a boy were tidying the rooms and had begun to set the table for the evening meal. Nerdanel paused at the doorway, wondering if she should leave and then return in order not to disturb them. But the woman and the child indicated that she should enter and finished their work quickly even as Nerdanel removed her cloak and set the package down.

After they’d left, she looked at the food laid out upon the table and considered whether she should eat or wait for her father to return. It was simple, a savory tart, some bread and cheese, nothing that wouldn’t keep a little longer. She decided that she should wait. She opened the packet of supplies nad selected a sheet of paper. She stood and walked to her bag and removed a knife with which she began to sharpen the charcoal in order that one end formed a very fine point while the other remained broad. Once she finished she began to sketch the broad outlines of an image that had begun to take shape in her mind as she had walked home. She heard, as she worked, the sound of her father’s footsteps in the hall and noticed that he paused before he opened the door as if he were unsure of what he might find. She heard the door open but she did not look up from her drawing immediately but rather waited until she heard him put his bag down. She set the charcoal down and smiled at him as he removed his cloak and sat at the table. He smiled in return and reached over to touch her hand. She noticed that he did not ask how she was. She also noticed how thorough his gaze was and how it encompassed both the uneaten food and the sketch before her.

“Were you not hungry?” he asked. “You might have eaten.”

“Not really,” she replied. She began looking over her sketch and considered where she wanted to continue.

“Would you eat with me, regardless?” he asked. “I would enjoy the company.”

She saw the worry in his eyes and heard it in his voice. She moved the sketch aside and drew one of the plates before her, and they ate together. The meal was no longer very warm, but it was well-prepared. Nerdanel noticed this and knew that she might have savored it had she been presented with it before, even though it was cool. But, now, she had difficulty discerning the different flavors. She focused instead upon teh process of cutting each bite, spearing the food with a fork and placing in her mouth. She chewed it deliberately before swallowing it. It took far longer than she had expected, and she was anxious to return to drawing. When they’d finished, her father collected the plates and placed them upon a table near the door. He returned to the seat beside her and asked if he might see her sketch. She shook her head, saying only that it wasn’t finished. He smiled, but she thought it was a little strained. Then he told her that he was tired and thought he might try to sleep. He suggested gently that she might considering doing the same and continuing her drawing the next day. She nodded told him that she only intended to do a little more before she retired. He stood and lightly touched her shoulder before he left.

Once he’d left, she returned to work on the sketch, but she found herself unable to pick up where she’d left it. Each new line seemed forced and somehow a little off, and so she soon abandoned it and, selecting a fresh sheet of paper, began to draw again. She discarded that one as well before it was more than half completed. She drew a third and found that image more pleasing to her. She continued to refine it and then began to sketch smaller details and different angles. Before she had progressed very far, her father sat down beside her.

“Love,” he said gently, “I think you’d best sleep rather than come with me today.”

“I’ll go,” she said. “I just need to get ...”

“Will you show me what you’ve been working on?” he asked. “You seem more content with it today.”

“It’s still not ... it’s still not what I want it to be,” she began. “But it thought that they no longer had anything to make the harbor beautiful. Once it contained statues and other works of art. Those are no longer there and they do nothing ave didn’t have anything to remember.”

“They may not yet be ready to remember, and they may not want us to advise them to the time, the pattern and the form their grieve should take,” he said. In her memory, his voice was impossibly tender. At the time, his words had seemed impossibly harsh. “Is it you who needs to grieve and remember as much as they?”

“Do I deserve to grieve?”

“You too have lost your sons and some of the promise of what they might have been.”

“But, given what has been done, am I allowed to grieve?”

“What does allowance have to do with it at all?” Mahtan asked. “As a child, you grieve when you feel grief and you do not think on the rightness of the feeling; you simply acknowledge that the feeling is. And why should this feeling not be? As a mother, you grieve the loss of your children, even if they live and even if they should remain living. As a wife, you may grieve your husband’s decisions and their cost? As a daughter, you may grieve with those who have lost their fathers.”

“I need to be able to do something,” she said.

“Then sleep and come work in the forge tomorrow.”

“I need to do this,” she insisted, “I need to create.”

“Yes,” he answered, “but, for now, that creation may be only for you. It is up to them whether they wish to partake of it. It cannot be forced upon them.”

She had been furious, though, in truth, in a more rational moment, she might have recognized the sense in his words, that the need she had to create, to offer recompense was for herself as well as for those she knew to be wronged.

She had not gone to work with him that day. She had returned the following day and the day after that and the one following. Each day she would walk to the harbor with him and work until they both were weary. They would then return to the palace and eat. After they had finished, he would sleep while she remained awake and drew. She had continued to refine her original sketch and had explored several different angles for viewing it and its different elements.

She had thought that her father might ask to see it again. But he did not, at least not until the seventh day when she awoke to find him sitting next to her and patiently waiting for her to wake. She had finished sketching and had begun to attempt to bring life to her designs by creating a model from clay. Again and again she worked at the image, but, much as it had when she began to render it on paper, it eluded her in this form too. She lifted her head and examined her last attempt, partially crumpled in frustration. She pushed it aside and began to sit upright. As she did, her father looked closely at the clay and then at her.

He aid nothing for a long while, but considered the clay and then her. After some time, he asked, “May I see the design?”

She leaned over and pulled the paper from where she’d pushed it to her side. She handed it to him.

“From what material do you intend to make it?” he asked. “Marble?”

She nodded her head. “Yes.”

“Where will the you find the material?”

She simply looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Formenos,” she said, ‘there is a quarry near in the north.”

“I see,” he replied. “It is powerful.”

“It is what I see,” she replied. “But something seems not quite right.”

“Perhaps it does not suit you yet, but it might if you give it time. Perhaps what is missing will reveal itself,” he said and paused for a moment. He remained standing and staring at her latest sketch. When she started to take it from him to contemplate what she might add, he touched her hand and placed his fingers upon the sketch to leave it in place. She raised her eyes and looked at him, puzzled by his actions. He moved slightly to the side and began to sift through the several preliminary versions of the sketch and found one, almost identifical to the finished piece but the one she’d drawn standing while the other slept had begun to take flight. As she took flight, she raised an arm to the sky. Mahtan placed it opposite the most recent version and looked at his daughter. She looked at him and then down at the sketches.

“That’s it,” she said softly. “I’ll need to refine it further, but that .. that is it.”

“Sleep,” he said, “and finish it tomorrow if you want. We may take it to Arafinwë and Olwë tomorrow.”

“You said they might not want it.”

“That is true,” he said. “Olwë and his people might not want it. They might believe the wound too new. They might prefer to employ an Telerin sculptor. But they may not; they may find this fitting. I believe Arafinwë will appreciate the design as well.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then they don’t, but I think it means a great deal to you and I think it is important that you try,” he said. “There are those among the Teleri who understand that you have lost your children too and may grasp the depth of their despair and pain.”

“Can I?” she said.

“More than some,” he replied.

“So many mothers have in both sides of this conflict that should not have been. I am not alone,” she continued.

“No,” he said, “you are not. Not only are you kin to the Teleri in that but there are many in the Noldor who are unsure of what to do. Many women there are whose husbands, brothers and sons have left them, so many that Arafinwë is unsure what to do. We are a smaller people by far than what we were.”

“May I go with you?”

“You should, but I would suggest that you take sometime to sleep and eat before we go,” he said. “You must, at the least, do that. I have lost a man a considered a friend as well as the husband of my daughter and father of my grandchildren to madness — this was something I had felt long before he challenged his brother or rebelled and left Valinor — but rather when he grew more fascinated with gems than with you, my dear. I grew angry too that he made it a choice, wherein the children were forced to choose between him and you. But I had hoped that we might, in time, temper his fire and draw him back; his sons, I think, hoped for something similar — you they did not fear losing, but their father they did.” He stopped and fell silent.

“But now we have.”

“Yes,” he said gently, “if Mandos’s Doom is true, then I fear we may have lost them beyond the hope of a quick recall.”

“I cannot give up hope,” she answered. “I must believe that someday my children may return home.”

“And, indeed, you should not,” he said, “but, somehow, between now and then, we must find a way for you to grieve and then to live.”

At the time, she had not been ready to hear such advice. The loss of her sons too new and too sharp to master, and the love she’d once borne her husband not a distant memory. For a moment, a quick and sharp retort came to her lips, but, then, she saw the sadness and the worry in her father’s eyes and she heard the kindness in his voice. she nodded, recognizing that he spoke so because he cared for her and worried.

They waited another week for her to finish her design to her satisfaction and then attended upon Olwë at one of his audiences. Mahtan had been uncertain that a public presentation was the appropriate way to offer the design, but Nerdanel believed that the offering needed to be a public one so that the penance inherent in it and the shared sorrow might be visible and that the Teleri be able to exercise their right of choice here and now before all and have their choice be respected as it had not been before.

“They may feel you are forcing their hand,” her father had said. “Much as others tried to force it earlier.”

“I am not forcing them to accept,” she’d answered. “I’m providing them with the opportunity to accept or reject my offer, however they see it.”

“Will they see it that way?” he asked.

“I do not know,” she answered. “I hope they might.”

She had brought the piece before them, asking forgiveness on behalf of her family and her people, and then placing the sketch before Olwë. He took it and gazed at it for a very long time without saying a word. He handed it to Arafinwë still without saying a word and then sat back in his throne, looking above Nerdanel at something she was unable to see.

“It is well made,” he said finally. “I appreciate the craftsmanship.”

“Thank you.”

“It would make a fine sculpture and a worthy testimony to your own injury.”

“But?”

“But ... the wounds a raw and not yet healed. They may yet be infected,” Olwë said. “Do you know why they are so difficult?”

“Because so many were lost?” she asked. “That would seem reason enough.”

“In itself,” the king replied, “it is. But it is more complicated and the cut is deeper. We came here, Finwë, Ingwë and I, in search of a safe place for our peoples, a promised land. We came from the darkness and sought the light. We had loved our old home for it was beautiful but there was grave peril in the beauty for there were shadows in the darkness, shadows that sometimes drew close and, when we least expected it, stole away some of our people. We sought refuge here, and here we were happy and safe. Or so it seemed for a time. We lived in peace and in contentment.”

“But then Morgoth was released and brought the darkness here.”

“He did, but he sowed it among us before he and the spider took the trees and killed Finwë. He it was who spoke lies to turn brother against brother — and more than just your husband and his brother — and to inflame the passions of our hearts and our minds. He kindled greed and a desire to hold own to the works of our hands, a desire that led your husband to wish to hold onto his jewels and then to demand our ships, not understanding that we valued them as much as he his own creation and, perhaps, needed the more for they provided a way for us to eat and to live.”

“I am sorry,” she began.

“It was not your doing,” he replied. “It is, though, that the idea that the Darkness might even touch us here when we had been safe for so very long and when there was no need to fear and no one from whom to escape.”

“I see,” she said.

“You cannot,” he replied. “You do not know of the days long passed when to walk in the woods was to risk life and limb, when the sound of horses’ hooves meant something far darker than even Oromë’s Wild Hunt, when we were shorter lived than we are now. You cannot imagine those things, or to know our happiness when we believed ourselves to be safe, safe to raise children, safe to have a family, safe from harm.”

“I do not,” she said, “but my children shall and, perhaps, though them, I shall know it.”

“Perhaps,” he replied, “and I am sorry for that.”

She bowed in acknowledgment.

“To have thought ourselves safe and to have had this happen, at the hands of shadow but our own kin. It is impossible to imagine, impossible to believe it is real. We do not, cannot, fully understand the extent of the damage or how it will forever change our lives. We do not know. Neither do you. I hear the markets in Tirion are full of women without their husbands. It is little different here. I know not how we will continue to thrive — your people and mine — when we have lost so many of our most talented men. Who shall take their place? It will be long before the children grow old enough to do so, assuming there are enough.”

Nerdanel stood and looked at him in surprise.

“Who will forge tools?” Olwë asked, “Among your people? Who will bend planks to build a ship?”

“Ships are being crafted,” she answered.

“In far longer time and less expertly than before,” he answered. “Who shall make shoes? Who will craft a wheel? Who will drive the plow? It is, if anything, a more difficult problem for you than for us, but I am angry that your people have forced it upon us.”

Nerdanel had no answer at first. Her father remained still and steady; the look on his face as calm as any. She noticed Arafinwë’s downcast eyes and then found herself meeting Eärwen’s steady gaze.

“Who is left, your grace?” she asked. “Who is left?”

“Meaning?”

“Who is left?”

“Children,” he said.

“Then they will learn in time,” she answered.

“Women,” he continued.

“Most of us have labored at our husbands’ sides in the workplaces and their shops,” she continued. “We may do as we must.”

“Can you?”

“Watch us,” she answered, “if the alternative is little to nothing — if the alternative means my husband was correct in thinking that I or any other woman was little without him, then you shall see what we may do. I have already been doing so.”

“Indeed, you have,” he replied, “and I thank you for your help.” His voice was less grudging than before.

“Your grace,” she said and bowed.

“I shall keep your sketch, my lady Nerdanel,” he said. “I am not ready to accept it but I am also not ready to reject or to destroy it. I will hold it here and let you know when I feel the time is right.”

“I thank you,” she said. She turned and touched her father’s shoulder. They rose and left the hall.

“I am surprised,” Mahtan said as they returned to their rooms in the palace.

“Yes,” she answered. I had not expected much consideration, so, while I would prefer the offer to have been accepted, I am glad it has not been rejected.”

He nodded in reply. They continued their work at the harbor until the fleet had been rebuild and new piers raised to replace those damaged in her peoples’ flight. Both Olwë and Arafinwë came to see their departure and to bid them a safe journey home.

Before they had left Olwë had taken her hand and had said simply, “Not now, but, in time, in time the wounds will have healed enough and we will be ready to receive your gift.”

She had nodded. She had returned home and had set the sketch aside. Years had passed, one after the other, and more than years. Then a ship had appeared in the harbor, captained by a strange young man, half-mortal and half-Elven with one of her husband’s jewels bound upon his brow. He had come to speak to the Valar, and they, for once, had listened and taken pity upon the remnants of Nerdanel’s people. A great Host had been raised and Morgoth defeated. Those who had survived, who remained had returned home.

There had been so few. Her sons were not among them nor her grandson. Instead, news of them, so terrible and so difficult, arrived that Nerdanel wondered if she might not descend into a sleep of sorrow so deep and so great that she might never return. She had examined the sketch then. She had considered burning it. She’d even brought it to the fire, but she did not. Instead, she had gathered clay and began to make different models of it, refining her vision, digging into the feel of it.

More years passed. More exiles returned. Many of them brought word of those of her people and family who still remained, barred as they were from returning home. Some told of her niece and her grandson’s achievements, of a city as beautiful as Tirion among the foothills of a mountain range. Others told of a man with a golden voice found sometimes walking at the edge of the sea. Still more years passed, more elves returned home and the stories changed. The wandering elf was seen far less often. The city her grandson and his cousin had built had been destroyed and her grandson with it. Again, sorrow overwhelmed Nerdanel and she considered abandoning hope. Again, she did not. An age passed and another drew near to its close. Still more exiles returned, but none from her family, at least not until one day she heard bells ringing from a great distance. Some days later a note followed, delivered to Formenos by a Telerin boy. It was from Olwë. It advised of the defeat of Morgoth’s last great servant and of the arrival of Olwë’s granddaughter, and it contained a message within it.

“The time of Elves outside of the Blessed Realms has ended, and a new world begins. Our people come to this land, and it seems a time to reawaken joy and hope after a season of sorrow. Create your work, lady. It is time for it. Bring it to Aqualondë at the dawning of the new year.”

Nerdanel paused and looked to her grandson. Her tale had been a long one. Arien had set and was now rising again, and he looked beyond the gates to the mountains and observed the dance of her light upon their face.

“And so in the midst of these endings, we have been granted a new beginning?” her grandson asked.

“So it would seem,” she answered. “Shall we take it with all the promise it entails?”


End file.
